Asha general funds proposal – Bhagavatula Charitable Trust

Summary

BCT is an organization started by the highly respected Dr. Parameswara Rao about 30 yrs ago. Ever since then BCT has been leading the field in innovations in village development. Their initiatives pioneered in the seventies and eighties in wasteland development, educational activities, women’s development have been immensely successful and replicated throughout the country. These programs have been successful because they were begun at the village level and fully involved the villagers, rather than in an alien environment and superimposed on villagers. BCTs programs have always evolved from the needs of villagers.

BCT has been running 103 NFE (Non Formal Education) centers for the past decade supporting about 5000 students. Started initially as night schools, they have been converted to full day schools with a full innovative curriculum. BCT is trying to achieve Universal Elementary Education (UEE) in the three mandals of Vishakapatnam District. Till now, the government funded all the education initiatives. But the government has decided not to support NFE centers any more and the government funding is ending. This puts the schools in great financial distress.

The Asha funds proposal is to build permanent schools and support these for one year for about 10 such centers.

History of BCT

Although established in 1976, work started almost a decade earlier when Dr. Parameswara Rao after getting a Ph.D. in nuclear sciences from the USA, returned to his native village Dimili, with the sole objective of doing something for the people of his village.

BCT is involved with overall integrated rural development in 3 mandals, namely Achutapuram, Rambilli and Yellamanchili in Visakhapatnam district, Andhra Pradesh, India. Some of their activities include, but are not limited to:

  • Education
  • Wasteland Development
  • Agriculture Extension
  • Community Organization
  • Health
  • Enterprise research and marketing for women
  • Community base rehabilitation for the disabled

BCT’s achievements in education

In 1990, BCT launched a literacy campaign. An intense drive was mounted with the goal that school children would teach small group of illiterates around their homes. In tandem with the literacy campaign, they embarked to help the government with their NFE program.

Staggering dropout figures of the government run schools led to the mainstreaming the dropouts by informal means of motivation and education. Thus was born the idea of NFE (Non Formal Education) under the central govt’s National Literacy Mission in 1986. NFE centers, which were night schools, were expected to prepare dropouts over a period of one or two years, after which they could be taken into the formal schooling system.

In last 15 years, it was realized that the NFE program had only partly achieved itsobjectives at national level. NFEs being night schools, though successful in attracting students, were generally not very effective, since many of the children, tired from the day’s work, showed little or no interest in learning. Added to this was the difficulty in providing light and proper accommodation for the classes.

Despite these difficulties, however, BCT was able to demonstrate commendable results in these years. The dropout rates could be brought down significantly by large enrollment and teaching up to even V to VII classes in these night schools. Since April 1997, BCT had however undertaken “Innovative Alternative Education Program” for the Ministry of Human Resource Development by continuing with NFE in a different mode and converted all their night centers into day centers and also doubled up the enrollment as well.

Currently, BCT is operating 103 full day non-formal education centers each with a maximum strength of 50 children and 2 teachers. This is substantial progress as compared to situation 5 years ago, when BCT was running 130 night schools (2750 children) for short time (21/2 hrs.) daily with 25 children per center and one instructor. Today there are in all about 5000 children, of whom 10% are in class V –VII

Future Plans

BCT is trying to achieve Universal Elementary Education (UEE) in the three mandals of Vishakapatnam District.

BCT is a pioneer in a whole range of different fields. Many of the initiatives pioneered by BCT in the seventies and eighties have found universality of applications all over the country, particularly in the areas of women’s development, wasteland development and education. After trying about 120 experiments all these years, they have come to the conclusion that “Education” is a “Key to development”. They are now of the opinion that every child in the country should have access to education and trying for a Model which will be effective and affordable with the total involvement and only responsibility by the villagers themselves.

BCT has a model, which they have developed over the past 10-15 years. This model constitutes of

Stage wise Education

  • Building permanent schools in villages.
  • Creating resources and facilities to send children of various age groups to school
  • Set up a stage wise curriculum and resources in schools (Preschool, Primary, Upper Primary, Secondary School and Junior College)

Project Management and Resource Center

  • Central administration unit for all schools
  • Responsible for all teacher training (all teachers who are hired are trained and have to come back every 3 months for refresher courses)
  • Development of curriculum
  • Center for thought leadership on village animation (See Below)

Village Animation

  • Training these villages towards self-sufficiency in 5yrs - e.g. building confidence in village communities that they can run on their own and fund their own growth.
  • Using children who are in the BCT schools, to become catalysts in social change in their own villages.
  • BCT came up with the concept of Village Education Societies (VESs), which would entirely manage primary schools, under the guidance of BCT. With these schools the overall enrollment has improved to above 85% and many parents have even shown preference to send their ward to their schools

BCT now has a model, which it wants to replicate in the next 5 yrs to build and reach at least 150 schools utilizing this model. BCT is on continuous trails and has tested several concepts on what works and what does not.

Although most students are educated till class V or class VII, there are two major aspects of their proficiency that need to be highlighted, which are different from conventional education.

  1. Students as Change Agents

There is a tendency for students who manage to reach the higher secondary level of education with the encouragement of some enthusiastic parents to take up city jobs. This is only exacerbating the already grave problem of rural-urban migration, of unemployment of educated youth and of inadequate number of educated youth to take on village development. BCT has learnt that the key is to equip and enthuse these village students to work for the development of their own communities.

BCT decided to include ‘Social Animation’ in its school curriculum, where the students are sensitized to rural issues and trained in village animation, public speaking, and community mobilization and leadership skills for constructive work. In short, the students are trained to become community organizers and facilitators of socio-economic change in rural India not in the least through a better understanding of the larger issues of poverty and deprivation.

The rural children offer themselves as more suitable medium for the change process. This is because - These are neither too young to be not effective communicators nor too old to be inhibited by new ideas and initiatives. They can be easily molded with new and transformational thoughts and when they become adults they can be depended upon to be consistent with an innovative new order. The additional advantage is the accessibility of the parents through these children, who often are a source of great motivation for their own parents, particularly mothers.

Dr Parameshwar Rao has introduced a concept called Balmandiram, which has become very famous. Dr. Parameswara Rao is currently involving the students in his Balamandiram experiment, where the students are divided into groups who propagate in villages, a 7-point action plan to address 7 different types of poverty: economic, health, spiritual, Knowledge, environmental (This was presented at the Asha-10 conf.) In order to do this, the children are made to first follow all the 7 practices themselves. An example: Every child saves a part of the small income that (s)he earns by selling what (s)he produces/makes, in the process of learning vocational skills (e.g. vegetables grown, uniforms stitched, handicraft articles made). Thus they learn to form and operate self-help groups, before they can go and preach in the villages.

Quote from a Site Visit

"One of the interesting features that I liked in this education program is the participation of students in the village developmental activities. The students from this school travel in small groups to the nearby villages during the weekends and improve awareness on local issues such as public health and hygiene among the illiterate villagers. I saw this as a fine example of the child being the father of the man. I was further heartened to observe the overall quality of the education imparted to these students with special emphasis on their personality development. The students made a brilliant presentation of their social conditions through a cultural program with such a great élan that belied their tender years and reflected their maturity and understanding."

  1. Vocational Training

It is important to impart vocational training to the children, and help them earn while learning, and prepare them to be self-supporting once they graduate from schools.

BCT decided to include vocational training in its school curriculum from Std. VI onwards. The students can leave with 8th standard or even 7th standard while getting exposed to vocational skill building at their level in agriculture, khadi and wood / metal craft. The vocational studies are in the streams of elementary education, social animation, agriculture, engineering and information technology with adequate exposure to practical aspects of implementation in rural areas.

Quote From a Site Visit

“I visited a school for the physically impaired students. This school conducts the traditional education along with vocational training programs to the disabled children in order to enable them with a continued source of income. The students showed me the clothes, disposable plates and other articles they produced during their training. Some of these items such as clothes are exported abroad and fetch a handsome profit to the school. Here again, I found an infectious enthusiasm among the students as well as the teaching staff in carrying the work spreading of education among the disabled.”

Asha funds Proposal

Most of the current education activities are fully sponsored by theMHRD, Ministry of Human Resources Development. However, this funding is supposed to end on March 31st, 2002. Not sure if this will continue. The central govt has recently transferred all education based funding to state govts. and BCT is not very optimistic about support from state govt.

The Asha General Funds Proposal is basically to build and support 10 such schools for a year.

Class room accommodation

One of the basic problems in the rural areas is the total lack of proper accommodation for running the education centers. It is indeed a very miserable and pathetic situation in village after village. The government buildings are often perceived as inaccessible, ill maintained and not also adequate for their own requirements, let alone such expansion as is proposed here. In most places the children do not have any movement space beyond the classroom, especially in the non-formal schools. Hence there is an urgent need to develop proper additional infrastructure for this purpose in every village.

With great persuasion at the village Education Society level, and involvement of the parents, it has been possible to obtain some piece of land in many of the villages, either by donation or on long lease for each center.

BCT has been running over 120 schools. These were supported by the money given by the government. The government gave BCT money to rent rooms (Rs 900 per month per school). But govt. funding is ending as of March 31 2002. So these schools will not have money to operate.

The plan is to make new schools (permanent structures) and transfer these students (in existing schools) to new schools. These permanent structures once constructed will be there for generations to come and will benefit people even when we are not here.

The eventual goal is self-sufficiency - and this is the first step towards self-sufficiency –not paying rent for schools every month but having permanent structures for years to come.

In the BCT plan it is thought that a minimum plinth area of 480 sq. ft. need to be provided for every 50 children for two classrooms. With some innovative effort in using cost effective technologies it has been possible to reduce the cost of building only to about Rs.167 per sq. ft. which would increase the cost of each unit of 2 classrooms to about Rs.80000 which is very low by any existing standard. With toilets, storeroom and other utilities this cost will be Rs.95000 per 2 classrooms unit. Of those 90000, BCT can come up with 20,000-25,000.

Their main source of funds are :

a. People have given some land, which has a monetary value, where schools can be built

b. Some money left over from other govt. projects.

c. Village contribution. BCT is involving everybody by asking them to pay a nominal fees.

But this still leaves a cost of Rs. 70,000 – 75000 to be met

Recurring cost per year per center

The following table gives a projection of this fund requirement in next 5 years.

S.No. / Stage I
Cost elements at the center / Primary School
No.of children per center / 50
No. x
months / Rs.p.a.
1. / Honoraria for 2 Instructor primary instructors @ Rs.1250 pm / 2 x 12 / 30000
“ “ for Secondary Instructor @ Rs.1000 pm / 1 x 12 / 12000
Training for Instructor @ Rs.100 / day / 3 x 45 / 13500
2.
Rental /EMIl / power / water @ Rs.500 p.cl pm / 2 x 12 / 12000
3. / .
Teaching / learning / play material for children / - / 5000
4.
Teaching / learning / play material for center / - / 5000
5.
Excursion / animation visits / - / 2000
6. / Total cost Rs. per center / 79500
Average Cost Rs. per child per month / 133

Stage I Age group 6 to 10 Primary School

Primary education up to IV class through centers in the immediate neighborhood where parents themselves can be made responsible to organize and manage, given basic infrastructure and a teacher. This is to be given to 100% of the children. This age group may be extended even downwards to 5 years age.

It has been observed that despite all campaign efforts the dropout continues to be high and as such their education levels recede back below literacy norms. So as to retain these children in the schools and not to let them go back as child labour, it is thought advisable that the children are engaged through out the day and early evening in constructive academic, vocational, animation, play, environmental and cultural activities.

BCT would thus offer 4 sessions in the school from 600 – 915 hrs, 1000 – 1315 hrs, 1400 - 1715 and 1800 – 2115 hours of which the academic sessions will be for two sessions. The rest of the sessions will be devoted to other activities. The Stage I centers have to be therefore appropriately manned with the inclusion of one more instructor (Secondary instructor) for the diverse non-academic activities for each center of 50 children. There will be two Primary instructors for 2 sections of 25 each.

Total costs

Building a school /

Rs. 75000

Running a school / Rs 79500
TOTAL COST / Rs. 154500
TOTAL COST (US$) - 1$=Rs. 48 / $ 3220
10 schools / $32,200

Total Asha Funds Requested - $32,200

Why Asha-Funds

To get involved with BCT represents a tremendous opportunity for Asha. Under the baseline document, this project would fall under –“New Strategic Project Directions for Asha”. BCT is a highly respected organization with years of experience working at a grass-root levels with the villagers. They have a unique model, which has been much admired andcontains many years of experience built into it.

This is a model is scalability. This model has already proved successful in rejeuvenating many villages. This is a unique and a new direction for Asha to follow. Most of the Asha projects concentrate on one school or one village. But this gives us a unique opportunity to affect several villages by successfully replicating this model. Building and supporting schools is just one component of the model. There are other aspects e.g. Project Management center + Teachers Training center etc , for which we are gathering other sources of funding. The money requires to build and run one school is $3000, which is not great. We can even ask different chapters to support one school each.

This project represents a tremendous learning opportunity for Asha, because of its scalable model and years of experience that Dr. Parmeshawar Rao and his family have dedicated to more than 50 villages and their lessons and experiences. To plunge into the unchartered waters of rural development takes courage and conviction. Most people who plunge into social development give up sooner or later wither because of charity fatigue or depressing ground realities. But Dr. Parmeshawar Rao and his family’s unwavering faith in village development have been continuing on for more than 35 yrs. This is an opportunity for Asha to learn from their experiences and work on grass roots level with a strategic partnership.

CONTACTS

Akhil Nigam

Apt 3, 616 Garden Street

Hoboken, NJ –07030

Phone: 917-371-5428

Email:

Ram Tekumalla

3030 Elmside Dr., #42

Houston, TX 77042

Phone: 713 334 3285 (home)

e-mail: